9.) Horace Epistles 1.19: Intro
1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 This letter to Maecenas (as were Ep. 1.1 and 1.7) acts as a defense of his own poetry and his belief that imitators are unable to replicate what makes Horace unique and novel. He frames this defense as a continuation of an old debate between water vs. wine drinkers and the poetry they write (i.e. those who rely on their craft/ars vs. inspiration/ingenium). The imitatores only ape Horace’s external appearance and public decrees, in the hope that these would allow them to write like Horace. The question of imitatio and aemulatio is rather humorously explored in this poem, and such comic elements are foreshadowed by the mention of Cratinus early in the poem. The literary criticism at the heart of this poem also hearkens back to early poems in the collection, especially Ep. 1.2 and 1.3, and Macleod points out how such aesthetic and ethical issues can be mutually self-reinforcing in this poem (1983: 266-79). In making claims for the (bad) poetry being recited at Rome, Horace proclaims his own originality and embodies it in these letters/poems, a point stressed in Williams 1968: 1-30. He notes that his poems are read privately (and enjoyed), and this indicates a need for readers (like Maecenas and you) to make sense of and defend his work against the rabble. This point makes critics think the reception of his Odes was not positive, e.g. Fraenkel’s “The unsympathetic reception given to his carmina by the majority of the public hurt him greatly…He therefore pledged himself to abandon once and for all the thankless task of thrusting upon Roman readers poems which they obviously were unable or unwilling to appreciate” (1957: 308) or Kennerly’s “1.19 is one big petulant pout about the reception of Odes 1-3″ (2018: 121). There is humor and irony in this poem, as throughout the collection, and we believe this poem’s bitterness has been overemphasized by certain critics. He claims that he follows in the footsteps of Greek poetic antecedents and shows how his own poetry matches the ars of previous writers, but with his own novel Roman subjects (res). Horace questions whether public recitations are the best venue for his poetry, an issue well-discussed by Lowrie 2009: 251-58, who finds “He resists recitation because the wrong thing is on display: the poet and his clientèle rather than the poetry for itself. It is not so much that the public has poor taste, though it probably does. Rather the public wants to be paid off, and this has nothing to do with quality” (256). Horace writes that the people say he only writes for Augustus, which may be true (Ep. 1.13), and at the conclusion of this poem ring-composition brings us back to the opening poem of the collection (also addressed to Maecenas). In a collection that often muses on the correct behavior and obligations of patrons and clients, it is notable that this poem features Horace as a “disgruntled patron surrounded by inept clients” (Oliensis 1998: 173).